


Adventures of the First International Hero-Villain-Alliance ['That's an awful name' - 'We're working on it']

by arthur_177



Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Mostly Humour, Some Cursing, Supervillain AU, avengers kinkmeme, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_177/pseuds/arthur_177
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richards and Doom have teamed up against Stark and Vanko in a fight who can requisition the most obscure, potentially dangerous, and paperwork-generating laboratory equipment; Dr Strange and the Hood aren't on speaking terms because the Hood has befriended a couple of ceremonial magicians, which the Hood argues is good PR and prevents them from accidentally summoning Cthulhu, and Dr. Strange argues is wildly irresponsible and doomed to go wrong, and Johnny Storm has filed a complaint that the excessive use of the word 'doom' which has started lately is discriminating and needs to be regulated in order to protect the villain-hero alliance.</p><p>Coulson wonders if it's too late to resign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures of the First International Hero-Villain-Alliance ['That's an awful name' - 'We're working on it']

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the avengers kinkmeme prompt: "The bad guys decide to team up with the Avengers because they kind of like the planet the way it is/their friend got kidnapped/they prefer to maintain their 'independent contractor' status/whatever." (http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/11065.html?thread=23575609#t23575609)
> 
> As always, Clint's part turned out a bit more angsty than I'd planned, but Coulson's part is pretty much entirely humour, and Natasha's part is cheerful and happy ending-ish enough.
> 
> I know very little of comic canon, so apologies if my characterisation doesn't make sense. The bit of Russian at the end should be clear from context, and my grammar is a bit rusty, so if you spot any obvious mistakes, please let me know.

Clint has taken an odd liking to the Hulk, so he never quite understood why Bruce treated 'the other guy' like this evil mirror image lurking behind his back. Sure, he got it on a rational level, what with the Hulk breaking things and causing Bruce a lot of problems, but at the end of the day surely the Hulk wasn't that bad. And having a mirror persona type of thing sounded kinda cool, like something out of a comic book or a movie. 

He gets it now. Boy, does he get it now. 

The other guy is sitting on the couch, feet propped up on the table, methodically destroying the iconic 'Keep Calm and Carry on' poster across the room with thrown paperclips and pieces of tacos. Clint never really liked the poster, but now that it's being torn apart by.. that guy, he feels an odd need to protect it. The guy just shrugs and tells him he doesn't like red, and 'out of the way, Barton, don't think I'll stop just because you stand there'. 

Clint gets it. There are alien threats now, and demons, and whatnot, all of them powerful enough to destroy the entire planet and then some, and at the end of the day it must be nice to still have a supervillain lair to get back to in order to have a nice cup of tea with your arch-nemesis and discuss how you're going to thwart each other's plans once more tomorrow. He's of SHIELD and the Hero of Another Story more often than not, so he doesn't get an arch-nemesis, but he can imagine that sometimes, when you've been fighting each other for years, there's just nobody else there who understands you and your motivations as well. Maybe there comes a point where the risk of damaging the fabric of the world so badly that there is nothing left in which to have an academic debate on mutant supremacy over chess and biscuits becomes too great. Maybe after a day spent opening interdimensional portals and managing a bit of old-fashioned robbery on the side, it's nice to know that you can have a quiet night in with your girlfriend and aren't interrupted by the good guys barging in when all you want to do is relax on the couch while plotting your next nefarious scheme. Maybe at the end of the day they aren't all that different - Doom certainly sounds exactly like Richards or Tony or Vanko when trying and failing to explain their new superscience project to people like himself. Maybe this was inevitable, and the only sensible outcome. 

He's struggling a bit with the last part though. The guy on the couch gets up, pats him on the shoulder and says 'Come on, little birdie, time to go kill someone', grinning at him like a mission was all festivals of all denominations come at once. They ARE that different. Aren't they. (The first week of the alliance, when Fury first brought the other guy in on a mission, Clint had fought him tooth and nail afterwards. He'd knocked out a tooth, but the guy was still grinning as if this was just as much fun as the mission ['Fucking hell, stand down, there is no need to take out that – The fuck are you doing, this isn't some kind of sick killshot competition', and he'd have given him an earful too if it hadn't been for Coulson's calm 'Barton, get off the comms, proceed to extraction point']. He'd gotten himself a bruised rib and a split lip, and the other guy has one hand around his throat, squeezing just a little, with an expression that was almost loving, as if he was petting a kitten rather than contemplating to break a man's neck. 'Stop making such a fuss, Barton. Come on, that was fun, wasn't it? You're like me, you must have felt it.' 'I'm nothing like you', he'd spat. The guy'd laughed and let go of him. 'If that's what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night.' 'I'm nothing like you, Lester', he'd said, much weaker than he'd liked. 'Don't call me that, I have a fucking name, Barton. See you tomorrow, little birdie, Fury always has more work for the likes of us.'). There is no 'the likes of them' – there's just him, and then there's the other guy. Amazing aim aside, there is nothing they have in common. Nothing. (Nothing, Barton, damn, get a grip on yourself.)

He apologizes to Bruce. Bruce looks at him in confusion until an almost painful degree of understanding washes over his face as Clint clarifies that it's about not taking him seriously about the 'other guy' issue. He doesn't tell Clint that Clint is nothing like his other guy, and Clint doesn't indicate that that's what he'd really like to have heard. 

Clint wonders if that means that that's what Bruce thinks about him, about all of SHIELD. That there is no difference between them, perhaps apart from the manic grinning.

He goes to find Coulson, because they have a tactical operation in which it might come to hostile casualties to coordinate. Coulson is an anchor to normality. Coulson doesn't have an 'other' hanging around him. He's a little bit jealous. 

 

Coulson sighs and wishes he got a simple arch-nemesis like everybody else. Instead, he gets reports. Richards and Doom have teamed up against Stark and Vanko in a fight who can requisition the most obscure, potentially dangerous, and follow-up-paperwork-generating laboratory equipment. Dr Strange and the Hood aren't on speaking terms because the Hood has befriended a couple of ceremonial magicians, which the Hood argues is good PR and prevents them from accidentally summoning Cthulhu, and Dr. Strange argues is wildly irresponsible and doomed to go wrong; Hill has asked him to mediate because dealing with magicians is bad for her blood pressure and the magicians' health. Johnny Storm has filed a complaint that the excessive use of the word 'doom' which has started lately is discriminating and needs to be regulated in order to protect the villain-hero alliance, which Coulson knows he only did to take the piss, but it's still a formal complaint, and so he has to deal with it. Loki and Toad have engaged in a competition who can cause the most accidental damage by making Cyclops' glasses malfunction or Dr. Banner hulk-out, and the damage reports as well as complaints from everyone affected, including Summers and Banner, have somehow bypassed everybody else within SHIELD and are now on his desk. It seems that Phil has been promoted from being the Avengers' handler/babysitter to being the babysitter of the First International Hero-Villains-Alliance ('That's an awful name' - 'We're working on it'). 

He wonders if it's too late to resign. 

He denies Wolverine's request/demand for a communal beer fridge, rejects Stark's design for a self-cooling communal beer fridge, files Johnny Storm's five-page ramble about how important morale is and how it would be greatly improved by a beer fridge under 'incorrectly used forms', and writes a polite note on the correctly used form from Captain Rogers explaining to him that while he understands that he is up against formidable peer pressure, caving in will just make matters worse. 

He allows himself the small satisfaction of writing 'NO!' in red ink across everything he receives from Wilson. 

Sitwell calls him and tells him that it's his job as high school principal to break up the food-fight between Spider-Man and Venom that has broken out in the mess hall. Coulson tells him that he needs to stop betting on the wrong guy and grabs a jacket that needed dry-cleaning anyway. 

He's willing to bet that Natasha never has to deal with this sort of stuff. 

 

Natasha has the night off, большое спасибо, and so she tells Coulson kindly that she commiserates with his gloomy fate but indeed does not and will not deal with this sort of stuff. She pushes enough of the accumulated.. things out of the way to prop her feet up on one of the work-benches and takes the bottle of vodka from Bucky who is sitting on a ratty couch and watching Krokodil Gena on an old tv that should have fallen apart before the Iron Curtain. Wanja is building something, and she tells him to stop. 'Come on, take a night off. Proving that you can do Tony's designs better in a worse-equipped workshop can wait till tomorrow. Drink.' 

Vanko sighs, but accepts the bottle anyway. Bucky has stopped humming the theme tune and says, 'How come we do stuff like that? Watch old tv shows, drink vodka, behave like Cold War stereotypes, that sort of thing?' Natasha smacks him, but she laughs. 'Watch whom you're calling a Cold War stereotype here'. Vanko says, 'A little stereotypical behaviour is good for the soul sometimes.' He conjures three glasses from somewhere in the chaos that is his workshop and fills them. 'Drink, you said. Выпьем за дружбу.' Natasha drinks. Friendship. Yes, at the end of the day, that's what all of this brought. Superheros and Supervillains together, and now they are drinking in chaotic workships and toasting friendship and actually mean it. 

She lets her eyes wander across the various schematics scattered across the floor. Most of them are improvements of the arc reactor or things Wanja is working on with Tony, but she thinks she sees a design for a device that looks a lot like the one Doom built last week which could easily take down Avengers Tower (except he's not doing that sort of thing anymore, he just wanted to prove a point to Richards, he'd said. Richards had agreed that it was a purely academic exercise, much like his shockwave generator which could incapacitate all Doombots within the radius of a mile). Sometimes, a little stereotypical behaviour is good for the soul. 

'И выпьем за враждебность тоже' , she says, because drinking to enmity as well as friendship makes sense in this strange arrangement they have. Vanko laughs. 'Very good. За здоровье моих врагoв', he says. To the health of my enemies. They certainly live in interesting times. 

On the couch, Bucky starts singing Gena's Birthday Song. On a day like today, all of this feels strangely like a home none of them ever had. Natasha is not quite sure what she makes of that yet, but she has a suspicion she might end up almost liking it. She isnt' sure what to make of that, either. But thoughts like this are for different nights - for now, there are friends and enemies who have become friends to drink to and with.

 

Eventually, Tony, Steve and Clint all end up in the workshop, Clint with a bottle of vodka he hands to Natasha as he likewise pushes things out of the way to prop his feet up on the work-bench next to hers before going on a subdued rant on how maybe the other guy is a decent shot and not entirely awful to have around, Steve with a bowl of popcorn which he places between them as he settles on the couch next to Bucky as they start to discuss old tv shows and that time in Germany when they thought they'd discovered vital intelligence and it turned out to be a story book about a mouse playing fiddle in every forest . Tony spots Doom's design in the pile of schematics and says 'The idea is reasonable, but it could be a lot more efficient. Victor's good, but some of his devices could do with some work.' Ivan grins. 'Reed cannot hold his drink, and he boasted he was a better scientist than Doom, but Doom was a better scientist than you.' Tony huffs. 'Oh please. As if I needed to prove myself to anyone, let alone Reed Richards.'

Two hours later, they have made Doom's design 100% more efficient and completely rebuilt Richards' generator. Bucky's asleep on the couch as Steve watches Tscheburaschka with the intent concentration only someone faced with the bizarre case of a foreign language programme with strange puppets can show. Tasha is smiling indulgently at Clint, who managed not to call the other guy 'the other guy' once or twice. She hands her glass to him and raises the bottle. 'To friendship and enmity. May it long last'.

It may be the vodka, but everyone agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> Krokodil Gena is a Russian children's tv show (Tscheburaschka is another character in it). I'm oddly fond of it, and somehow it made sense to have Bucky watch it. 
> 
> The story about there being a mouse in every forest who fiddles (In jedem Wald ist eine Maus die Geige spielt) actually exists and is from a book of children's stories by Gina Ruck-Pauquèt. It's from 1990, so throwing it into Cap's timeline is an anachronism, but it's a beautiful story about letting go and finding something you thought you had to give up in new places all over again, so it seemed appropriate. 
> 
> Of course, 'Hero of Another Story' is a tv trope, and the Interesting Times are both a reference to the Chinese proverb and the Discworld book, because why not.


End file.
